Monday, August 08, 2005

Academic freedom and censorship

The Religiously Correct are
just hammering the last nail in a new frame for their
specious arguments on intelligent design: it's all about
academic freedom and censorship:

"There are only a tiny minority of people who
don't believe that, who don't believe in free speech on
evolution," he explains. "Unfortunately, they happen to be
in some of the places of power. And so it's very good and
we're very pleased that President Bush has come out on the
side of academic freedom on evolution -- not on the side of
censorship."

West says the Discovery Institute opposes mandating the teaching of intelligent design in schools, but supports requiring students to know about scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. State science standards in three states -- Ohio, New Mexico, and Minnesota -- require students to know such information.

Yes, science should no longer be moored by empiricism.
It's time to base all scientific discussion on the
principles of freedom of speech. Rather than teach our
children what a bunch of scientists have to say, let's have
our children base their scientific understanding on the
snazziest PowerPoint presentation. I vote for the one with
the cool animated monkey!

By the by, the Minnesota standards are here
(Word document). A few things our children are expected to
learn in high school:

The student will explain how Doppler evidence
indicates our universe is expanding in all directions.
Careful -- this is consistent with the Big Bang!

The student will use evidence found in fossils, rock
layers, ice cores, radiometric dating and globally gathered
data to explain how Earth has changed over short and long
periods of time. Careful -- this might indicate the
Earth is more than 6,000 years old!

The student will explain how the sun, Earth and
solar system formed. Easy answer -- God did it. Next
question!

The student will use scientific evidence, including
the fossil record, homologous structures, embryological
development or biochemical similarities, to classify
organisms in order to show probable evolutionary
relationships and common ancestry. Yipes! That's not
Genesis-friendly at all.

The student will understand how biological evolution
provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record of
ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular
similarities observed among the diverse species of living
organisms. Ack! It's getting worse.

In other words, Minnesota's science standards do
not specifically require students to know
scientific criticisms of evolution. Although to the extent
that scientific criticisms of any theory exist, students
should be exposed to those ideas. Scientists don't object to
science: they object to belief masquerading as theory.

1 Comments:

You should reprint Steve Sack's edit. cartoon from last week on Intelligent Geography.